February 27, 2008

You Judge Wikileaks

Wikileaks, a site for whistleblowing otherwise confidential documents, had its domain name desisted by a federal judge in California and now has free speech legal support.

...One reason why U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ordered
the domain name offline was that Wikileaks had not sent a lawyer to a
hearing or responded in any form. After that, a judgment for the
plaintffs wasn't exactly a surprise.

Wikileaks, by the way, was sued by a group of Swiss bankers--Bank
Julius Baer--who claim in the lawsuit that confidential information is
on the site. Wikileaks is still online at the Internet address http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks and a host of mirrors including wikileaks.cx.

A strength and a weakness is that a wiki is a central resource with decentralized control. That openness and the open access to provision a wiki, makes models like Wikileaks possible, if not inevitable and ubiquitous. Plus volunteered mirroring when a community starts to carry value that people don't want to shut down.

Regardless of if you think Wikileaks is a good thing for our society and the rule of law, if how information wants to be free trumps the Freedom of Information Act, its more than inevitable forces at play. Wikileaks grew to the point where its community developed norms and standards, if not a good bullshit detector, which is encouraging for its half-life. And perhaps inevitable if it is to be credible, by a different judge.

I have to draw the distiction between these wiki moments in nascent communities on the public net and what happens behind the firewall. Such re-education from successes like Wikipedia or failures like Wikitorials are a big part of what we do. In an enterprise you have both transparency and accountability. If someone break the rules you know, and you can, um, fire them. I haven't seen that happen, and perhaps there is a different kind of self-regulation.

Comments

You Judge Wikileaks

Wikileaks, a site for whistleblowing otherwise confidential documents, had its domain name desisted by a federal judge in California and now has free speech legal support.

...One reason why U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ordered
the domain name offline was that Wikileaks had not sent a lawyer to a
hearing or responded in any form. After that, a judgment for the
plaintffs wasn't exactly a surprise.

Wikileaks, by the way, was sued by a group of Swiss bankers--Bank
Julius Baer--who claim in the lawsuit that confidential information is
on the site. Wikileaks is still online at the Internet address http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks and a host of mirrors including wikileaks.cx.

A strength and a weakness is that a wiki is a central resource with decentralized control. That openness and the open access to provision a wiki, makes models like Wikileaks possible, if not inevitable and ubiquitous. Plus volunteered mirroring when a community starts to carry value that people don't want to shut down.

Regardless of if you think Wikileaks is a good thing for our society and the rule of law, if how information wants to be free trumps the Freedom of Information Act, its more than inevitable forces at play. Wikileaks grew to the point where its community developed norms and standards, if not a good bullshit detector, which is encouraging for its half-life. And perhaps inevitable if it is to be credible, by a different judge.

I have to draw the distiction between these wiki moments in nascent communities on the public net and what happens behind the firewall. Such re-education from successes like Wikipedia or failures like Wikitorials are a big part of what we do. In an enterprise you have both transparency and accountability. If someone break the rules you know, and you can, um, fire them. I haven't seen that happen, and perhaps there is a different kind of self-regulation.